John Deere offers sneak peek at its 850L crawler dozer

850L dozer

Focusing on reliability and durability, John Deere has completely redesigned its 850K dozer to create the new 850L crawler dozer.

The new dozer was previewed during a recent media event at John Deere’s Sacaton demonstration site near Phoenix, Arizona.

The 850L, which is designed and built by John Deere in Dubuque, Iowa, is expected to hit the market in June.   

 “This machine is bigger, more powerful and it is really the workhorse our customers have been asking for,” said Amy Asselin, manager of construction product marketing at John Deere Construction and Forestry.

“This machine will push anything you put in front of it.”

With a recurring theme of ‘bigger’ throughout the design, the 850L features a heavy-duty mainframe with an increased thickness by as much as 60 per cent in certain areas.

“Not only does the 850 L look bigger, but that Power Angle Tilt blade is the largest PAT in this size class,” Asselin said.

With an operating weight of 21,581 kg to 23,295 kg, the dozer will be equipped with the 225 hp Tier 4 Final John Deere PowerTech PSS 9 litre engine. In comparison, the K series dozer was equipped with a 6.8 litre engine.

“That’s giving us 10 per cent more engine power and 23 per cent more torque,” Asselin said.

As well, all configurations of the 850 crawler dozers now have an eight-roller undercarriage, resulting in 330 cm of track on the ground.

deere dozer

“This gives us increased productivity, stability and improved grade ability,” Asselin said.

Furthermore, the dozer is built with grade control-ready electrohydraulic (EH) valves and a dual-path hydrostatic transmission with 13 per cent larger pumps than the 850K.

Servicing the 850L

Within the dozer, components are placed to optimize the hydraulic and electrical routing, resulting in a 60 per cent reduction in hydraulic hose length, and a 33 per cent decrease in the maximum harness bundle size.

For technician access, the service doors on the 850L are 50 per cent larger than the previous model. Deere also designed the machine to include a cab that tilts 70 degrees for access.

“There’s less hardware to remove and flag pins to turn,” Asselin said. “This machine is designed with the technician in mind.”

Other new serviceability features include a simplified HVAC system with brushless blower motor; an updated cooling package with full access to both sides of all coolers; separate hydraulic and hydrostatic reservoirs; and a five-year JDLink telematics subscription that includes machine health monitoring, remote diagnostics and programming capability.

In the cab

With input from John Deere’s Customer Advocate Group, the dozer’s size cab has been expanded by 15 per cent, while in-cab noise has been reduced by 27 per cent.

john deere 850L crawler dozer

“It makes a long day in the cab much more comfortable for those operators,” Asselin said.

If the 850L is equipped with SmartGrade, the monitor is mounted on the centre console, directly in the operator’s field of view.

Deere’s new and larger LCD monitor is position on the operator’s right side.

The new operator station is also equipped with an angled seat with a high-back design.  

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“Operators are going to appreciate that angled seat for visibility to the rear ripper, and the front doors are also larger for increased visibility to the blade,” Asselin said.  

The 850L dozer will be available in new John Deere-designed, factory configurations such as waste handler, forestry protections, pipelayer-ready models and mechanical angle blades.